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I. DEVELOPMENT OF IT FOR USE IN E-COMMERCE
e-Commerce Concept
E-Commerce contains two core words, ?e? which stands for electronic
and the commerce itself. The essence of e-Commerce is actually lying
on the commerce itself. The ?e? component in the e-Commerce is just
the catalyst to speed up the second component, ?commerce?.
Commerce, with or without ?e? is simply a market, or a way or a method
to accommodate suppliers, buyers, and brokers to interact with each
other and finally making transactions. So, the success of an
?e-commerce? highly depends on the goods or services offered by the
suppliers, the need and the buying power of the buyers and the way the
brokers facilitate the deal. In other words you must really understand
what the market really wants and the ?e? will follow to speed up the
process and hence the result.
e-Commerce Key Success Indicators
In the current e-Commerce world, the key indicators of the
successfulness of eCommerce site or eCommerce system are:
? It?s ability to adapt to new market needs
? Has specialty in a specific market segment or specific products
? Almost un-man, only minimal human intervention required for day
system operation,
? It?s never (or at least very minimum) fail,
? Accepted and usable globally, and
? Globally well-known and become people?s top of mind.
One example is amazon.com. Initially amazon.com is an internet book
store (I rather use ?internet? rather than ?virtual? term) and it only
sold new books. It gradually added the portfolio from just trading the
new books into trading the used books. And now amazon.com has added
more and more items into its internet store. It is an example of the
amazon.com?s ability to adapt to new market needs.
Amazon.com also has specialty, which is book traders (even though it
trades other than books as well). And off-course amazon.com fulfilled
all other four key success indicators criteria stated above
(automatic, never fail, used globally, and has became people?s top of
mind)
IT Development for Successful eCommerce
So, what are the key concerns regarding the development of IT for use
in e-Commerce? It simply follows the 6 key indicators above, i.e.:
1. Ability to adapt to new market needs
Information Technology development is actually just a development. It
depends on the man behind the gun. The key success of the IT
development to cater the market requirement is lying on the ?non-IT?
guys who can see the market needs and translate it into successful IT
applications.
For example, when we create a new e-banking system over the internet,
we need to know exactly who is going to use the system. If we want to
make many existing ATM users to switch to internet system, we must
make the interface in the computer screen as likely as possible to the
interface in the ATM machine.
Another good example is the amazon.com?s ability to offer related
books to the buyers based on the last book they bought. It is based on
the market behavior of the buyers when buying books in the bookstore.
2. Specialty in Specific Market Segment
From IT-development point of view, the fewer the variety the better
the application system will be. Why? Every market has its own
characteristic. eBay for example, its business process behind the
scene is actually simple, suppliers have items, description, and
price, and the buyers have passion to own them and money to buy them.
e-banking as another example needs more back-end process to validate
the customer. Or e-export/import as another example that needs to hide
the actual buyers or sellers information in order for them to get the
broker fee.
The key success of the IT development in this point is the knowledge
of business process which is translated into a very good data flow in
the back-end and linked to the very good customer-liked interface in
the front-end.
3. Almost Un-Man
It is very clear for IT developer to make everything running without
any human (IT guys) intervention, some of the guidelines are:
? the payment gateway should be linked directly to the well-known
payment system (e.g. thawte),
? the verification system should have used the well-known systems in
the industry (e.g. Verisign),
? in the case of internet-based eCommerce system the database and
application are designed for internet application (not the translated
version of non-internet application),
? the self-healing or self-fixed or auto-notification system must be
built in order to maintain the application stability.
4. Never Fail System
In order to minimize failure, the load testing must be incorporated
into the development. The system loaded with 10 users and 10,000 users
will behave differently. The initial design of the application is also
critical, that?s why the ?non-IT? guys must determine the potential
users using the system long before the system it-self in place.
5. Accepted and Usable Globally
As you are already aware, around 80% of the PC worldwide are using
Windows and the rest are using open sources. The development of the
application must consider whether the application will be used by
Windows users only or going to be used by users using open sources as
well. The implication would be pretty much different.
The complexity of the application itself must be carefully considered.
If it is designed to run on IE 6, it will be troublesome or the
performance gets hit when the users use IE4 or Mozzila.
6. Globally Well-Known
The final key success factor is mostly dependence on the ?marketing?
guys. The 5 guidelines above will be nothing if your products or your
websites are unknown to public. The proper advertising media will
direct you to the proper marketing segment.
For example, for e-Banking system, a look-and-feel demo would be
helpful as a strong marketing tool. A business-to-business
e-procurement system would be more effective if marketed directly to
the targeted companies.
Summary
The IT Development is just following the business development. The
successful IT development is resulted from the proper business
strategy which is properly translated into IT systems.
II. LINKS BETWEEN CORPORATE INFRASTRUCTURE, MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHY, AND
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE ON ORGANIZATION?S SUCCESS
Information Architecture in General
Information architecture from which the information flow within
companies is managed is the essence of the business since long before
the Information Technology even existed. In the old days, the
information flows are in the form of the paper that is ?flying? from
departments to departments. In our modern era, even the paper-based
information flow is still used while the new mode, electronic or
intranet or internets are in place as the complement or even the heart
of the business process.
It is indeed mandatory for a corporation to have information
architecture. Information architecture is an on-the-ground map that
translates the business flow and business process in general.
Information flow is the very basic intra or out-of departments
information exchange. Example of the information flow is the process
from RFM (Request for Material) into the PO (Purchase Order) which
started with RFM initiation, RFM level-1 approval, RFM level-2
approval, RFM approval in purchasing department, RFM approval in
finance department, Cost Center Checking, Budget Checking, Buyer
Received the RFM, Buyer finds out the Supplier, and finally Buyer
creates the PO.
In some great corporations such as GE or Walmart or ExxonMobil, they
would surely die if they don?t have such information architecture in
place. The question is how significant the link is from the
information architecture to management philosophy and corporate
infrastructure.
Management Philosophy
Management Philosophy is a ?jargon? that buried deeply in every
corporate culture. It could be clearly stated in the corporate?s credo
or it can be just a norm that everybody in the corporate have been
aware of. It?s not just a jargon, it is more deep and its like a
behavior that has been inherited or embedded in everybody?s soul
working in the company.
For example, a ?Performance Driven? culture in a corporate will tend
to create best results of every deliverables delivered by the
corporate?s staffs. Why? Because non-performing employees will be
easily spotted and the non-performing result produced by
non-performing employees will not be even accepted by their peers. It
is all because every employees tend to work as best as they can in
order to be called ?Performance Driven?.
So what is the point here? If the corporate has a clear business flow,
it will have a clear business process, and it will be supported by
written policy and procedure to control the implementation of that
clear business process, and finally the implementation in the
department level will be supported by a series of standard operation
procedure. If all standard operating procedure throughout the
organization is linked together, we will have a very detail map of
what we call information architecture. We can easily spot problems and
suggest some improvements if we have a very clear map, a good
information architecture. And improvement is the key success for
organizational success.
If the business process is not yet clearly mapped and the parties
involved in the process flow is not clearly involved in the policy and
procedure, it will be very difficult to create the information
architecture, and finally it would be hard to spot the problems.
Difficulties in spotting the problems will lead to difficulties to
find the best solution. This will off-course lead to difficulties to
improve the organization as a whole.
The basic diagram of the link between the organization?s success,
management philosophy, and information architecture is as follow (see
MS-Word document):
Infrastructure of a Corporation
From the description above, it is imperative that the successfulness
of the organization will depend on the management philosophy and its
translation in the business process. The business process itself will
then be translated into information flow which is the basic and most
deeply on-the-ground information interchange that are potentially
improved for the sake of organization?s success.
And how about the infrastructure of Corporation. It is simply the
environment of the corporation i.e.:
? Rewards and punishment system
? Acceptance/Reluctance level for new systems
? Speed of new knowledge acquisition
? Risk level of corporate managemen towards changes
For example, even though the good information architecture is in place
and the management philosophy has been incorporated into a corporate
culture and written policy and procedure, if the rewards and
punishment system is not in place, the policy and procedures will not
be effectively followed by all employees.
Another example is the management reluctance to accept changes. Even
though the information architecture has been clearly defined for the
intra and out-of departments business flow, and the immediate fix or
improvements have been identified, it will not be implemented into
action plans anyway because the higher level management will reject it
anyway. So, the infrastructure is a mandatory third pillars that need
to be linked with management philosophy and information architecture
in order to achieve organizational?s success.
Summary
The three pillars, management philosophy, information architecture,
and infrastructure of corporation will made the organizational?s
improvement much more easier to spot and implement. The management
philosophy is the driver that drive the whole organization the
corporate?s desired target. The information architecture is the map to
achieve the target, and the infrastructure of the corporation is the
vehicle itself. |
